Del Webb Reviews in Austin, TX

It's been 2 months since closing and the only item from the punch list that has been fixed is the refrigerator. Some others have resulted in phone tag that ended in their court and some have no effort at all.

The Pulte/Del Webb team does an adequate job in building quality homes but seems to leave details to clean up later due to the rush to get you to the closing table. Communication between home builder and buyer also leaves a lot to be desired as phone calls and emails are often ignored or given a delayed response. With that said, we are not unhappy in our new home and the community is great.

Sun City is beautiful and I do believe there will eventually be many activities. We are currently playing golf, going for walks on nice broad sidewalks and in beautiful wooded areas, and attending Spanish classes and some other groups of interest on Zoom. The neighbors are wonderful people and very friendly. I was frustrated in how little time we were involved in planning the house and how poor some of the communication was. The outside brickwork and inside tile work was highly professional. We didn’t get the tile we requested in the kitchen; there were serious problems with the floors, and much of the work inside and out was sloppy. Outside, at the bottom of the bricks, there is visible black fabric sticking out, and there are strings hanging out all around the house. The cement on front porch was not smooth, and there were paint spots on the bricks. A large orange stain was left on the driveway. Inside, texturing was uneven and poorly done in some areas, mishaps in painting were not cleaned up, scratches and dents were not filled it, and at least a fourth of blue tape markers of cosmetic problem areas were ignored. We still love Sun City and would do it again but I believe the builders need more training, better equipment, and more supervision and direction. I would tell a friend to but a spec house or a model so that they know what they are getting or to purchase the least expensive choices and then have the floor, tile, lights, etc. put in by professionals. ... More

Due to the highly strict HOA's (you wouldn't let us put up a very nice wrought iron fence for our dog until we could get the permanent one installed), we decided we are just too old to live by so many stringent rules. The wife in the household was treated like a 2nd class citizen when she came to view the home by the salesperson at Sun City. Mary, with Pulte Homes, was excellent.

Stay involved in the building process. Don't assume anything.

Del Webb tends to squeeze its subcontractors to the point that only the most egregious issues are addressed -- *IF* you notice them and *IF* you vociferously complain. There is no pride in the work that is done and the finishing touches are just plain missing. Regular inspection of the construction process and rigorous screening of specs are a must. Also, ensure that any promises made during the construction are in writing. But, overall, they are admittedly a notch better than some other builders (Perry Homes, K&B, DR Horton).

I’ve found several major issues with the house since I moved in and contacted the warranty division. They’ve come out to look and agreed repairs are needed, but nothing has been taken care of.

The workmanship in our home is, to be polite, poor. Paint spatters on the floors in every room in the house. Out of square walls. Doors that don't fit the frames. These are just a few of the issues we have had with this house. We never heard from our salesman again after the contract was signed. Overall this was not the experience we had looked forward to. It's not likely that we would ever buy another Pulte home.

Felt like bait and switch on the financing end. Stuck with Pulte on everything for one-stop shopping convenience. Very misleading info on interest rate and incentives. Lead to believe both incentives and lower than market rate were in effect. However, did not find out until first closing estimate was dropped on me that the interest rate would be 7% in order to get incentives. Told I could exchange incentives in order to buy down rate. Then multiple last minute underwriting requests with only a couple of days to closing. Was told everything approved and then another request. Left and right hand were not communicating. Seemed like all notifications came at the end of the business day with no way to react. On one occasion, I was told of a problem with the loan at the last minute on a Friday. Had to go all weekend to even find out what issue was. Almost pulled plug on entire purchase due to this. Advice: have your own mortgage company lined up! Do not rely on Pulte. ... More

Buying a home from DellWeb was fairly simple, but the service provided by some is not great. We are provided several options to contact warranty..no one answers the phone or just goes into a waiting period. Leave a message, no returns calls. The warranty process in my opinion doesn’t make sense I rather do text messages. But some on team insist use the website. I don’t use website..don’t give me options if only one is available. Ask Jesse—When it rains a lake is visible behind home and next door too. The fill dirt on property is the crapiest I’ve ever seen. Also, the back yard is so uneven. Who was the PM overseeing this project not a good job. It’s horrible. I was told several weeks ago they are working on it. Lies!!! Also laying rocks on the entrance a dumb idea trucks turn shapely and return rocks back into the roadway. The streetlights are still out some of the them. They know which ones are not working if not ask the PM. The back yard has so many divots it sucks why do I need to level the ground off when the PM should have been Johnny on the spot. Didn’t happen! Don’t understand the warranty options—three of them. Only allowed to use one. Wow. ... More

Many personnel changes during process. Hard to get a response or attention to problems.

I believe the builder (Pulte) builds a very structurally sound house. Very well insulated, etc. Our problem is that we got caught in the middle of supply chain disruption, COVID, the hottest market in the country (Austin). It took 14.5 months to build our house. We could not get ANY completion dates on the house until days before closing. A person cant plan a move without a closing date. The finish subs were horrible. The painter was doubly horrible. Pulte's CM was a really good and hard working guy but he was overwhelmed with a huge workload. the clear solution would be been better oversight on the vendors and subs. Minimal supervision on very poor subcontractors creates a circus-like environment and disastrous results. Feel free to contact me again if someone would like more information or recomendations. ... More

The level of overall communication during the construction process and also the follow through on commitments to resolve issues was very disappointing and in many cases non-existent. It’s a nice house, but issues remain.

Extended time it took for build vs estimate. Quality control is at best average. You need someone watching every step of the build to insure things get done properly.

A challenging time with extreme turnover and supply issues. So it is unknown if Pulte would be different than we experienced from Nov 2020 to Nov 2021. The Pulte process assumes the work by their subs will be poor quality requiring three and four do-overs. Oversight while work is being done the first time by Pulte is almost nonexistent. Pulte gets involved after the fact when the initial poor quality has already been built in. There were extraordinary deficiencies evident during the Builders Walk-Through before Closing. The Buyers had to do the punchlist the manager should have corrected before calling for the walkthrough. Closing had to be delayed significantly after what was supposed to be the final walkthrough before Closing. Problem is what we found were evident at supposedly completion. You can only wonder what was covered up in the building process knowing so little oversight occurred. ... More

Be prepared for working with a production builder that has no competition. The only checks and balances in play are the existing building codes. And remember, those are minimums. Granted, our project was hampered by the Covid pandemic and a harsh winter, but the resulting delay in material access is the only thing applicable to those causes. Neither of those have anything to do with poor craftsmanship and quality of materials. Both of those elements have left us disappointed. All we expected was a house like the model that led to our decision to contract with Pulte Homes. Nothing less and certainly nothing more. What we didn't anticipate was how much effort would be required to get to that minimum. And that we are still waiting for some of these elements to be corrected even after closing. Our Project Manager did much better than I thought was possible with these circumstances, but I felt like he was constantly swimming upstream. We entered the process of moving to Sun City with the perspective of a new house being the icing on the cake of a well planned retirement community. What we have experienced is a cake with very little icing. ... More

Our initial purchase of home was based upon Facetime photos. We were looking at 2 different models that had modifications and it was confusing. Our daughter lives in the area and we based selection upon her viewing the actual models. The sales team sent regular updates of the building progress of our home. 1 day prior to the time of the initial walk through we were notified there was a flood in our home which set the process back. Apparently there was a back up from a toilet that was left running, and the entire home was turned over to SERVEPRO. The agent and the salesperson worked to help us understand the situation and sent videos of the damage. Carpets and flooring had to be replaced and the home had to be re-inspected prior to our signing escrow. On the morning of our walk through, after all of this, the field manager informed our realtor that the house would not be ready for the final walk through, At the advice of our realtor, we did the walk through later that evening rather than wait. We wish we would not have done that. When we closed escrow there were still items to be completed and we were unable to move in for 4 more days. The team of builders, who gave us their phone numbers seemed to disappear and were unavailable to answer questions regarding shoddy workmanship. Suddenly, we were redirected to customer service which was not that great. Our home is under warranty for 1 year and we are noting all areas of concern, the caulking in the bathroom area that was obviously rushed to complete, the poor workmanship on the front door handle mechanism, kitchen drawers that do not close completely or the areas that need better quality of painting. We are currently working with the team regarding the garage door operating incorrectly. Surprisingly we got a quick response to our request on this but it will be 5 days before they can come out to check it out. I think the community is a wonderful place and the homes in general are nice, the customer service at this time is questionable. We are trying to be flexible and patient, there are many homes in the area still under construction and it appears that the follow through on the customer service end is still in process also. It is our hope that as these next weeks and months arrive our service requests and experiences will get better. In the future should we purchase a new home, we plan to be in the same state and actually watch the process unfold. ... More

The sales staff is friendly and helpful. The subcontractors are horrible. The construction supervisors we had are no longer with the company. They were terrible. We have had a positive response to our concerns and are awaiting scheduling of repairs to be made. Much time has been spent worrying and fretting about our decision to build here. We lived 1300 miles away when building took place. I would suggest if you build here, you rent here and watch every day the progress (or lack there of) being made. This was/is a very stressful time. We are being assured that all issues will be addressed. Ask us in a couple of months. ... More

The workmen ship and attention to detail is shockingly poor. Many many issues to many to list. Not happy. Would not recommend to anyone.

Interior workmanship lacking quality. Issues with paint, garage sheet rock. Sub contractors rush through work; thereby, leaving poor workmanship. Answer is let “Warranty” take care of it. After that it is a struggle with Warranty and the sub-contractor. Lot’s of excuses.

If you have any choice do not observe what goes on during the construction phase, you will save yourself a lot of stress and frustration. Add several days to the promised completion day, in other words, do not plan any deliveries, any visits, any activities until after everything is completed and signed off on, and then add five days to that! Allow yourself time to do your own independent inspections.

Sadly, Del Webbs promise of a quality home was spoiled by the builder Pulte. Had I not hired an independent inspector the quality would have been far worse. Issues included the lot being impropriate graded so that water was channeled to the house instead of away. A crappy foundation poor. Frames that were not attacked to the footer. Broken trusses. Posts that did not go high enough to support the roof but ended in mid-air. A quality build would have included none of those. My only regret is that I was not present every day to reject the shoddy materials and workmanship before it was incorporated in my house. They did their best to fix them after the fact, but I cannot say that is Quality, since they would have gone unfixed if I hadn't insisted. ... More

Craftsmanship is horrible. Service was worse. HOA requirements out of this world

The sales and design agents were outstanding. However, the home project manager was severely lacking in basic communication and follow-up. Timelines were promised and missed at every step. Punch list items were not completed on time or as promised. The community is outstanding, but the home building phase is poor.

Building my new home was not the experience i had hoped it would be. Supply chain issues and delays we plentiful. My home was completed about 4 months past the initial completion date. AND the sub-contractors and trades were sub par. The amount of items that needed to be redone and that are still not corrected 2 months after my closing are way more than anybody should have. Since its only been two months since I closed, i cannot speak to the long-term quality of the home build